The Circle Expands
by Dreamer with a Dancer's Heart
Summary: HPCoM crossover. No spoilers yet. Briar and Harry are twins who are separated by their mother in an attempt to protect them from the horrible lives she witnesses in a vision...
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing….maybe the plot….yeah…that's it though… oh, and the poem. Tamora Pierce owns Briar and co., while J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter and co.

The moon was just beginning to fade from sight as the sun rose above the eastern horizon as three distinct cries were heard from the window of an upper level room in the Healing House of Hajra. Two were distinctly babies' tears, weak and warbling new cries that had never fallen on mortal ears before; the third was that of the exhausted, happy mother who had just spent the past day and a half bringing the two tiny boys into this world.

Healer Clarisha bent over to hand the sweating woman her sons. After carefully depositing her burden safely into the new mother's arms, Clarisha stepped back and asked the question that all the other healers would be pestering her about later, "Mage Alda, what are you going to name them?"

Peering closely into the identical bundles of blankets she held in her arms, Moniquena Alda thought for a moment, and then looked back at the Healer standing next to her cot. She smiled reassuringly at Clarisha and replied, "This little one," she said jiggling the bundle on her right arm, "with emerald eyes is Haresh, and this little one," she shifted her attention to the bundle on her left, "with jade eyes is Kherroch. My tiny jewels…"

In unison, both boys giggled once, and then started to wail. Moniquena looked up at the healer, "I think my boys are hungry. Do you think we could have a little privacy please?" Nodding, Clarisha turned and left the room. "Well little ones, who's first?"

An hour later, both boys were fed, changed, and tucked safely into their respective basinets, each labeled with their names written in the elegant calligraphy that was a symbol of the power and wealth of their mother. Moniquena stood in the space between the two and looked proudly at them. Powerful mage that she was, she never felt the vision coming. Gasping, she clung to the edges of the baskets as each boy's future flashed before her eyes. However, her grip on the basinets also put her into direct contact with her boys, their power amplifying hers until the near future was hidden from her and all she could see was the boys' lives in ten years. She saw her Haresh lonely, hungry, living in a tiny room under what looked like stairs. She saw her Kherroch stare glumly at X-marked hands, locked in a cell with twelve other boys.

With a shaking cry, she wrenched herself out of the vision. "Oh Goddess, is that the lives they will lead? No, I won't let that happen. I promise you, my sons, that you will never know those lives I saw, even if I have to send you away. I love you both too much to keep you if I am to doom you to _that_." Crying, she reached into the basket Healer Clarisha had used during the births and took out a knife. Cutting into her palm, she began to weave a spell spoken of only in legends.

_Search for the One,_

_Hear the ripping._

_The fabric of time and space_

_Enter the past,_

_The otherworld,_

_The future_

_Search for the One,_

_Travel through the universes,_

_From time known to time unknown _

_Follow nothing_

_Look at reality_

_Through another's eyes._

_Search for the One._

Blood dripped to the floor, but instead of forming a crimson puddle, a vivid green circle appeared. As the green color of the portal drifted to the sides, a kneeling young woman came into view, with bright red hair and eyes as green as little Haresh's. Her lips were moving, and tears were streaming down her face, but no sounds came through the portal. Moniquena looked closely and saw the reason for this stranger's despair. Clutched in her arms were two bundles, much like those ensconced in the baskets to either side of her, but unlike Kherroch and Haresh, they were completely still.

There was a hopelessness about the young mother that seemed to call out to Moniquena. The portal would not have opened to this woman had she not been worthy, but Moniquena wanted to be sure. A door opened to the left of where the mother knelt. A tall man with dark brown hair entered. Moniquena started to shake. He was the mirror image of her late husband, the father of her babies. Yes, her boys would be safe with them, Moniquena was sure of that.

Reaching into her magic to open a second portal, not a just portal of viewing, but a portal of sending, she realized how depleted her magic was. The vision and the opening of the first portal had nearly drained her. She should stop, and wait until her magic was restored. Moniquena searched through the nearly forgotten basket and took out some clean linen that had not been used during the birth. However, before she could finish bandaging her hand, an urgency filled her. Suddenly, she was desperate to do anything to get her boys to that couple, to keep them safe from whatever it was that forced them into those lonely, miserable lives.

Removing the strip of linen she had already wrapped around her hand, she again took up the knife and sliced it across her palm, opening an even deeper cut. She repeated that motion on her other hand. Letting the blood drip on the floor where the original portal was, she reopened it, making it more powerful, and stable enough to not hurt Haresh and Kherroch. Keeping a careful eye on her magic, she directed the portal to the now deserted nursery.

Cautiously, she took up Haresh's basket and pushed it through the portal. As she did this, Moniquena noticed her power take a massive hit as her son's power separated from her own as it crossed through the very fabric of reality. She was tapping into her life-force, scraping up the very last amount of strength she had to keep the portal open in order to send Kherroch through. However, before she could maneuver Kherroch's basket to the mouth of the portal, a second vision took control of her attention, one that took even more of her dwindling strength. Had a healer looked in at this time, they would have watched in horror as the once beautiful young woman grew haggard and spindly, almost frail, her very life pouring into the violent bout of foresight. They would have seen her face turn pale and horrified, as her vision showed her the near future that had been hidden from her earlier, how the portal she opened would separate the boys forever, would drain her magic to the point of extinguishing it, would send her to an early grave, leaving her four year old Kherroch on his own in the cruel streets of Deadman's District. She saw how her Harresh would be targeted by an evil man in his new home because of his foreign and unknown power, saw how his adopted parents were murdered before he was even past his second birthday, saw how he would grow up in that tiny room under the stairs without affection.

Those same healers would have seen her wrench herself from the vision, sobbing, to take up her remaining boy and disappear into the night, knowing that she was the one to doom them to those lives. As it were, there were no healers around to witness the flight of the now powerless mage, and the cries of shock and distress were many and loud the next morning as they discovered that Moniquena Alda, the most powerful seer in the entire known world, disappeared, leaving behind one empty basket and a pool of dark, crimson blood, never to be seen again.

A/N… Did anyone notice the significance of Briar and Harry's mom's name? If you didn't, that's okay, it's kinda obscure, and probably only makes sense to me because of my distinct lack of sanity. I wanted her to have a name meaning farsighted, or something along those lines. So, Alda- the last name of the actor that played Hawkeye Pierce and Moniquena- sounds kinda like Mohicans (the main character of the book, _The Last of the Mohicans_, was named Hawkeye), well okay, it doesn't really sound like it, but use your imagination. Basically, it's a really really roundabout way to (hopefully) un-cliché-like give the name of a mage meaning. Plus, even though she's powerful, that doesn't make her wise in the use of that power. Personally, I think I made her a bit of a moron, but maybe I'll explain why she was so hasty later…

Like it? Hate it? Think it should be infected with a virus so severe it will crash my computer forever in order to keep me from writing more? Let me know!


	2. Arrival

AN—Gah! Thank you so much those of you who reviewed the prologue! I got the first one at the end of a very, very stressful day, and let me tell you, I got some serious warm fuzzies off it. It even beat when a friend of my parents, who happens to be a professional chef, told me that my crème brulee was restaurant quality! Thank you so much! Sorry it's been a long time since I posted the prologue…AP Chem test, AP Calc test, a giant ethics project, plus the start of swim season, all in one week. Yeesh, I'm surprised I survived! To all the Americans reading this, HAPPY TURKEY DAY! For everyone else, enjoy your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while we have a giant feast. :-P

p.s. I don't own anything…

_Those same healers would have seen her wrench herself from the vision, sobbing, to take up her remaining boy and disappear into the night, knowing that she was the one to doom them to those lives. As it were, there were no healers around to witness the flight of the now powerless mage, and the cries of shock and distress were many and loud the next morning as they discovered that Moniquena Alda, the most powerful seer in the entire known world, disappeared, leaving behind one empty basket and a pool of dark, crimson blood, never to be seen again._

"**_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…Given to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies._"**

James sighed as he watched over his wife. Lily had been so excited for the twins, planning everything she could: decorating the nursery, picking out names, _Merlin_, she even started a betting pool with the females in the Order about which houses they would be in, not that he was supposed to know about that, (Gryffindor was the strong favorite, though Ravenclaw was mentioned quite a few times). Seventeen hours of labor, _seventeen_. And it didn't end in joy like it was supposed to. The tear stains on her face were not from happiness, but from absolute misery, Merlin knows his were.

This war was killing everything. Their hopes, their dreams, their families. Mom and Dad would have been devastated too, they wanted grandchildren so badly But Mom and Dad weren't around. Voldemort had killed them personally just last week. It shocked Lily so badly it forced her into early labor. _That_ was what had killed the boys, not anything that Lily or James had done. James clenched his fist. He was sick and tired of Voldemort killing everyone he loved.

All of a sudden, Lily sat bolt upright. "James, did you hear that?"

"Hear what, Lils?"

"I thought I just heard a baby crying," Lily wiped the dampness off her face and rushed toward the door.

James blanched; this was not a good sign. He Apparated just outside the door, right in front of Lily. "Lily, sweetie, you're hearing things. Please, don't make this harder on yourself. The boys didn't make it." With that, he tried to take her into his arms, to comfort her in the only way he knew.

She pushed him away. "NO! You're wrong. I just heard it again." With tears of hope tracing the tracks left behind by earlier tears of sorrow, she raced across the hallway to the room that would have been the nursery and later the playroom of her darling boys.

James followed her, if only to catch her when she realized that there was no one there. He entered the room quietly, trying to picture what it would have looked like had their sons lived. He could see in his minds eye a very messy room filled with toy broomsticks and prank equipment, as befitted the sons of a Marauder. The room was built so that the ceiling met at a point directly over the center of the room. The north half of the room was painted a pale blue color seen just after dawn, while the south half was the dark blue of dusk. A yellow sun was enchanted to make its way across the ceiling east to west, mimicking the actual path of the orb. Lily's sobbing brought him back to the present, well, that, and the wails coming from a basinet that looked like it came out of the Middle Ages.

"What the…?" James stopped short, staring in disbelief at the foreign object sitting in the middle of what had just been a completely deserted, almost forbidden room.

Lily knelt by the basket, tracing the dark wicker. "Haresh…" Looking up, she exclaimed, "James! I wasn't imagining things! There really is a baby here. But, where did he come from? None of the wards have been breached, and I know this basket is not modern, Muggle or wizard."

"I don't know, Lily, I just don't know."

"James, he's all alone, that's why he's crying. He needs us! I need him! And besides, look at him. He looks just like you. I don't understand, but I don't care!" Lily looked up at James, who had come completely into the room to stand behind her. One glance into Lily's eyes was all it took to convince James that this boy, this Haresh, was now their son.

"Haresh, huh?" James asked. "Even in the wizarding world, that's an extremely unusual name. We'll have to call him Harry for short."

At that statement, both Lily and the newly nicknamed Harry gave soggy giggles. James knew in his heart that he was doing the right thing, and that Harry had been given to them for a reason. He only hoped that Voldemort would never find out about the sudden appearance of the newest Potter, because that would only increase the interest and hatred he seemed to have in the Potter family. After all, fourth times the charm…

AN—Sorry to cut this short. In approximately 15 minutes from now, my mom is going to come and confiscate my computer until I clean my room. Grrrr… but, to make up for this, I'm going to clean my room in record time, and hopefully have another (_longer_) chapter up by Sunday.


	3. Fateful Night

A/N Hello everyone. Contrary to popular belief, I haven't fallen over a cliff yet. Sorry for the lack of update…yes, I know I'm one of those authors who says that they will update, and then doesn't. Blame my school, and then swim team, and then more swim team, and family stuff. I will update as often as possible, but probably not very often until summer.

Sorry, but this is going to focus on Harry for a little while longer. My friend has my copy of _Sandry's Book¸_ and I don't want to make a silly error regarding Kherroch/Roach/Briar's life simply because I didn't take the time to look stuff up. Anyway, on with the show!

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot!

_At that statement, both Lily and the newly nicknamed Harry gave soggy giggles. James knew in his heart that he was doing the right thing, and that Harry had been given to them for a reason. He only hoped that Voldemort would never find out about the sudden appearance of the newest Potter, because that would only increase the interest in and the hatred he seemed to have for the Potter family. After all, fourth times the charm…_

It was the final night of Blood Moon, nearly fifteen months after the sudden appearance of the old-looking Bag and her infant son. She wasn't a Bag anymore though, just another old beggar fighting to get enough money to buy food. Throughout Deadman's District, an eerie fog blanketed the streets, muffling footsteps outside, and enhancing the creaks and shuffles inside the rickety, tumble-down buildings lining the filth clogged avenues. In a dingy, second story apartment, one inhabitant slept soundly, unknowing of the night-terrors plaguing the sleep of the toddler huddled next to her under the single, ragged, flea-bitten blanket.

These dreams, however, were not just the subconscious mind of a growing boy creating scenes of heroes and villains. No, these dreams were actually occurring to a little boy in an almost completely separate dimension, connected only by the unusual bond created between mage twins.

In a pose uncannily similar to that of his brother, Haresh, or Harry as he was now known, peaked out from underneath a well-loved blankie, tucked into a corner behind the toy box. He had been downstairs playing in the kitchen, raiding the plastics cupboard and using the utensils as drums, supervising as his mummy and daddy washed dishes the muggle way. All of a sudden, his mummy and daddy had looked panicked, with Daddy yelling to Mummy to take Harry and run, that _he_ was coming. Harry had been ripped away from his toys and carried up the stairs, crying the entire way; he had been having fun! Mummy had carried him into the nursery, and told him to hide, saying that they were playing hide-and-seek.

But Mummy wasn't playing right, she didn't cover her eyes like she normally did, and didn't say that funny sounding string of words she usually shouted. She was just standing in the middle of the room, directly under the peak of the ceiling, facing the door with the stick that made the pretty lights in her hand. All of a sudden, the door burst open, and a big man stood with his back to the light from the torches in the hall, casting a long, black shadow into the room where it covered his mummy in a dark embrace.

"So, little Mrs. Potter, stands alone to protect her son, or should I say, her gift?" His voice echoed through the room, distorted and hissing into all the cracks and cubbies of the nursery. Harry tried to hide further in the shadows, squirming back until his feet hit the wall. "I know that your sons were stillborn, so where did that little one crouched under that filthy blanket in the corner come from? **_'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…Given to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…' _**He shall not live to try!"

"I will not let you kill him. He is my son, whether or not I gave birth to him."

Laughing, the dark figure stepped further into the room. "Foolish child, you just confirmed that he is not of your blood. Your husband died to keep that secret, and you just made his death pointless, just another kill."

With just his eyes showing underneath the blanket, Harry watched as his mummy seemed to crumple, to wilt like his toast did if he spilled his milk on it. The pretty glowy stick dropped from her hands, landing with a clatter on the floor. Now his mummy wasn't standing anymore, rather she was kneeling on the floor, looking up at the monster in front of her.

"Not my Harry, please not my Harry, kill me instead." Where is Daddy? Why isn't he coming to help Mummy? She's crying. Mummy's not supposed to cry! "Please, no!" Daddy, come help Mummy! She needs you! "Harry!"

The big scary man in black brought out his own glowy stick, and pointed it at his mummy. "_Stupefy_" Harry shrunk even further back into his corner, as a yucky red light shot at his mummy, who fell forward, her hands not even coming up to catch herself, to lie still, the only motion being the steady rise and fall of her chest. His mummy was never that still, not even when she was asleep.

"I'm leaving you alive, Mudblood, just so you can see your failure when you wake up. Your husband and your son, both dead. Now, come out, come out wherever you are, young Master Potter. There is nowhere for you to go, and nothing left to protect you." The scary man stepped on his mummy, crossing the nursery floor in just a few strides until he was standing in the tiny opening between the edge of the toy box and the wall, cutting off the only escape route Harry was capable of using, seeing as he could only walk for a few steps. "So this is the mighty wizard who has the power to defeat me? You're hardly worth the effort it took to find you. My spy was most helpful though. Stand up, boy, I know you're old enough to." Harry was too frightened to move. Where was Daddy?

"No? Very well, suit yourself. _Avada Kedavra._" An ugly green light shot out of the end of the glowy stick and headed straight for him. Sudden pain on his forehead made him start crying, breaking the silence that had gripped him the entire time he was hiding. He huddled even further back into his corner, flattening himself against the wall and pulling his blankie up like a shield as the yucky green light filled the room, making every living thing in its path stop moving completely. The fishy in the bowl on the dresser went belly up. The owl in the other corner fell off its perch. His mummy went completely still, and the scary man disappeared from view, leaving behind only a fluttering black cloak and a gaping hole in the floor.

He crawled out of his corner and around the hole to where his mummy lay on the floor. Whimpering at the pain in his forehead and the overall scariness of the night, he cuddled next to the still form of his mother and cried.

A dimension away, the peaceful slumber of the old-looking lady in the dingy second-story apartment on a foggy street in Deadman's District was interrupted by the wails of the little toddler laying next to her. If she still had her mage-sight, she would have noticed the lightning-bolt shaped mage-mark glowing in the center of her son's forehead. As it were, she was more preoccupied by the shouts of the man across the hall.

"Shut dat kid up, y' lazy pile, before I does it fer y'!"

A/N… thus concludes the next installment of the Circle Expands. Very angsty wouldn't you say? Leave a review, if you please!


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